Erin Rogers - Composer/saxophonist

Aurora Gallery

3518 37th St
2nd Floor
Astoria, NY

Free and open to the public

Queens-based new music ensemble thingNY, Queens native Audrey Dimola’s “Nature of the Muse” reading series, and the Aurora Gallery are hosting an exciting salon of spoken word and poetry and its intersection with classical and improvised music. Featuring the music of Paul Pinto and Erin Rogers; the poetry of Audrey Dimola, Rosebud Ben-Oni, Safiel Vonay, Valerie G. Keane, and Thomas Fucaloro.

“Face it. This is why you live in New York” – Time Out New York

“thingNY catapulted a slew of notes and words from the stage and we laughed at snatches of the hysteria.” – Bachtrack

thingNY is a 501c3 not-for-profit collective of composer-performers who create and perform theatrically charged experimental music, champion the work of avant-garde and contemporary classical composers, and collaborate across disciplines, media and genres. The New Yorker‘s Alex Ross listed thingNY as part of the city’s burgeoning avant-garde classical music scene “striking an attitude of resistance to mainstream culture.” Comprised of composer-performers from the NYC metro area, thingNY creates and performs theatrically charged experimental music and collaborative fluxus-esque multimedia works, which have included collaboratively created operas, a radio play by Beckett, and over a hundred premieres of new music. thingNY.com

Born and raised in Astoria/Long Island City, writer/poet/curator Audrey Dimola has been writing about, participating in, and helping to promote Queens culture since her college years. She is the author of poetry/prose collection “Decisions We Make While We Dream,” guerrilla sticker poet of the Compass Project, founder of roving reading/live writing series “Nature of the Muse,” and curator of the first ever Queens Literary Town Hall. She has been featured on NY1 and in the New York Daily News, DNAinfo New York, Flavorpill’s Flavorwire, and many Queens publications such as BORO Magazine, which called Nature of the Muse “one of the most exciting literary events in the city.” Audrey devotes her life to the power of words and aims always to stay wild and stay grateful. audreydimola.com

This program is made possible in part by the Queens Council on the Arts with funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.